Who is the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition?

Our mission is to reverse the trend of mass incarceration in Colorado. We are a coalition of nearly 7,000 individual members and over 100 faith and community organizations who have united to stop perpetual prison expansion in Colorado through policy and sentence reform.

Our chief areas of interest include drug policy reform, women in prison, racial injustice, the impact of incarceration on children and families, the problems associated with re-entry and stopping the practice of using private prisons in our state.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

The number of reported burglaries, car thefts and larcenies has dropped steadily in several Colorado cities despite historic data that say crime should be on the rise during this deep economic recession.

The decrease puzzles criminologists but gives police reason to tout crime-prevention initiatives and tougher sentencing laws putting prolific burglars and car thieves away. Yet even the police aren't sure of all of the factors driving the phenomenon.

"Perhaps it would be a natural assumption that crime would increase when the economy is bad," said Detective Shannon Lucy of the Aurora Police Department. "It does kind of go against what people would expect."

It may be too early in this recession to see whether the downward crimetrend holds. Some who are young, poor and uneducated may yet be driven to crime after repeated failed attempts to find jobs, some experts said.

"People don't become criminals overnight. It takes some time for the strain to hit them," said Jeff London, assistant professor of criminology at Metropolitan State College of Denver.

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

ts intriguing that the experts are unable to figure out the drop in crime??? Do you suppose that it could be due to a drop in hours the police are out chasing there cars around arresting pot smokers and petty crime such as breaking into cars, graffitti ect.drop in paperwork.djw